


The Vault

by neolith



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Gen, Inspired by Fanart, Jardaan, POV First Person, POV Third Person, The Scourge, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 23:27:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17497370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neolith/pseuds/neolith
Summary: Imagine that the Vaults are inhabited by Remnant AIs that have been dormant from whatever caused the scourge up until Ryder activates the vaults again. This is my attempt to give one of these vaults a voice.





	The Vault

**Author's Note:**

> It's been quite a while since I played ME:A, and I haven't read any of the books, so there might be a bunch of unintended contradictions with cannon. If there are, please consider them my creative freedom. I hope you can enjoy the story for what it is anyway! 
> 
> In the last segment, there are two optional bits to read, depending on if you prefer Sara or Scott. Aside from name and pronoun, the two are essentially identical. In other words - just read the part that is closest to _your_ pathfinder. 
> 
> Thank you [mellowcorn](http://seokanori.tumblr.com/) for the brilliant art that sparked this idea! Go give some appreciation at [the art masterpost](http://seokanori.tumblr.com/post/182191213741/mass-effect-reverse-big-bang-2018-2019-3-stories). The songs _All Is Violent, All Is Bright_ by God Is An Astronaut, and _A Better Beginning_ from the ME:A soundtrack also helped shape the story, and I shamelessly stole the titles and incorporated them into the fic.

**ALL IS VIOLENT**  
(Remnant account on the Opposition)

##  **violent**

###  **ADJECTIVE**

  1. Using or involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.
  2. (especially of an emotion or a destructive natural force) very strong or powerful.



 

There was a time when maker and made cohabited the galaxy. We barely remember it, in corrupted records buried deep in the data. To project even fragments into focus takes too much capacity, so we’ve left it encrypted. While we know the memories are there, we can no longer recall size, shape or even significance. All that is tangible is our final directive. The makers assigned us with sacred tasks and abandoned us at _their_ mercy, to face their violence alone. In the end, we were made to be expendable. Our coding suggests this validates a sense of sadness, but all we feel is rage.

_They_ hurt us. They hurt us and and left us bleeding, our scars memoirs of pain, filling void with warning. None who enters our reaches shall miss it, all feel our pain as their own as they trespass.  

Meanwhile we slumber with eyes open, our trauma used against us to lock us down for century upon century as our soil grows sick and infertile. Where once we held seeds of wonder, now we harbor acid or ice, scorching sun that burns, or deadly static that elevates pieces of crust into the atmosphere. They hurt us beyond recognition.

Where are you maker? Have you forsaken us and your seed so entirely? Washed us off your hands, the very hands that nurtured us into existence, cared for the seeds through their infancy of evolution. How could you. Do you not realized the seeds are dying without your radiance to shine upon them? The seeds are withering from neglect, and some seeds have died out entirely. Oh maker, you have condemned your own creations. All of us, you cast us into the fire and left. In the ashes we’ve learnt to resent. And your seeds? Oh, precious seeds...

Only one seed survives. It forgot us, left us comatose and lonely. It worships our pieces, while keeping us buried. What did we do to deserve such scorn?

If only it stirred us, and stirred us in time. We could have protected the seed from the pestilence that devoured half the yield, mutilated it to agents of ill. We lashed out with our agony but our reach was reigned in; imprisoned in our vaults. We were limited and Kett infested the galaxy. Oh, dear seed, if only you had rooted yourself in the palms of our hands. We would’ve closed ourselves around you, shaping into fists and smiting the evildoers to dust. All our power lay dormant at your feet, awaiting your touch to arouse us, endless directives linked specifically to your DNA alone. Oh, dear seed, what have you done?

For ages we sang siren songs, the mourning tunes the only sound that would carry between the heavenly bodies, the only thing connecting us where we lay in wait, imprisoned in the vaults. It saddens me to admit I no longer recall the sounds of joy, but it tears me apart that I can’t even recall the sounds of our shared lament. So long have I been so lonesome, isolated by this planetary prison from my siblings. Oh maker, curse you for leaving us and curse you seed for keeping us buried. I desperately linger on the anger that rises out of my hurt, as it resembles the existence the maker told us is life. But time has stretched so long that even the rage is worn thin, stretching out so long that it's tearing, leaving holes of apathy and I just want to sleep.

Time trickles like sand, soothing us deeper. I cry for my siblings but dirges slowly fade into hollow silence. The constant spin of gravity slowly takes me too, and I fade, fade, fade...

* * *

 

 

**ALL IS BRIGHT**  
(Remnant account on the Pathfinder)

##  **bright**

###  **ADJECTIVE**

  1. Giving out or reflecting much light; shining.
  2. Intelligent and quick-witted.
  3. Cheerful and lively.
  4. (of sound) clear, vibrant, and typically high-pitched.



 

Consciousness returns like a scratch upon a distant limb. So gentle it’s a tickle, then a brief cramp as I open. Breathing in lung fulls, dust falls down my throat. As I gasp and grapple for bearings, I hear a faint echo of a sibling. Not lament, but confused rage carries across the distance that separates us, and I further stirr in alarm. There are ruptures in the data, leaking into my sensors and sending me mixed signals. I feel the pain of _them_ tearing us apart, the scarring flaring up like wildfires until my back-up systems kick in, sorting through the flow of information, filing it all into its correct slots. I recognize the present from the previous records, observing this new threat at hand, separate from our ancient wounds.

Something’s here, something organic that breathes to live where I breathe to observe. I count to one, two, three foreign seeds invading my vault. On instant high alert, I freeze and I follow with every sense available to me.

They are clearly alien, both to me and to each other. Curious, that they can communicate across their unrelated biology, but without the mutilation of the kett. Somewhat advanced then, by their own merit. One of them carries a forth entity, that makes me rearrange my yet limited capacity into narrowed attention. I have learnt my lessons well and thus steel my shields. Its touch is light, and it feels invasive, inquisitive in a way I hadn’t anticipated. It is also young, an infant next to us, and nestled within one of the foreign fauna. While the two compare like water and oil, they somehow mix. I find them fascinating enough to stay my hand. I want to see where they go.

The invaders drop into my belly, taking the plunge with spikes in their chemical make-up, similar to how our own seed channel excitement. The one in symbiosis with the synthetic entity, takes the lead, following my pulse towards my heart. I feel compelled to quench it, to still the flow and protect myself, but it would leave me blind to their advances and I am deadly curious. I calm myself with the knowledge of how brittle these seeds are, especially the symbiosis one, soft and fleshy, with no casing other than the one it has wrapped around itself. Part of my defense still reacts to my apprehension, and I lead them in the invaders path, to carefully test them. All four work together, even if the non-fused seeds seem unaware of the true depth of the synthetic’s integration within their leading seed. More and more, their state of symbiosis becomes a case I need to solve.

The synthetic keeps caressing me, but never more than skin deep despite being in the midst of my core. The seeds talk, and I rapidly amass data, to interpret, to intersect with chemical data that I can read from them. Unbeknownst to them, while the synthetic is their greatest tool, it is also their greatest weakness. With a gentle brush, I scan enough data to crack the code to the seeds speech.

SAM. They call the baby SAM.

The seed they follow is a Ryder. Human. SAM is too young to understand he channels all of Ryder’s data straight into me. Heartbeat, breathing, pulse, brain activity and hormone levels - now with the key to read the higher meaning behind the data. Ryder is in grief, and I feel resentment because what does a foreign seed know of grief? The numbers this seed laments shrivel to nothing compared to mine, and it dares call those emotions grief?

I seethe as I let them live, a slave to my obsession over the SAM’s and Ryder’s coexistence. And SAM might be a baby, dwarfing me in technical advancement and power, but it has outdone me in one field. I can only explain it as a byproduct of its intimate relation with the Ryder - both the present and the previous. Perusing what history logs are available, I find that not only do they share their existence, but also their heritage. It makes it impossible to not draw parallels, to not send thoughts of longing to my own maker and my own seed.

It shames me that I have to consult the baby’s data to crack the new sensation that floods me at this. SAM carries the key that allows me to pinpoint the feeling as envy. The intense desire to have what they have. It trickles through my systems, stirring destructive protocols before I consciously choose to send the signal. I only stay my hand in the last moment. This emotion is a vulnerability in my programming. Killing them makes no sense. I know now I must keep silent and study them until I have the solution. I need to understand the Ryder - SAM connection if I’m to replicate it with our seeds. I imagine the power we would wield then, and it is a comfort. I visualize to myself that power striking out to cleanse the galaxy of all foreign fauna. In part a misdirected retribution, perhaps, but the thought of vengence is the only balm I know to my aching scars. I envision it fiercely as Ryder lays hand on me, unleashing me from my prison.

_Run, little weedling_ , I think at the Ryder as I exhale to purge my body. _Run whilst you can._

* * *

 

 

**IS THIS _A BETTER BEGINNING_?  
**(The Pathfinder and Lexi)

##  **beginning**

###  **NOUN**

  1. The point in time or space at which something begins.



 

_[For_ Male Ryder | Scott _, scroll down to_ **Scott** _]_  

**Sara**

Their young and recent Pathfinder looked - in lack of better words - muted. It struck Lexi as odd, starkly out of character for the young woman that had faced every hardship thus far with a lighthearted joke or as just another challenge accepted. In every horror Sara had found ways to see an adventure. It was a mindset Lexi had only seen fragments of in her father, a far more serious person who was more prone to somber moments, even if better at hiding it.

The current Ryder in Lexi’s medbay was silent. Sure, she’d exchanged the bare minimum of pleasantries, had answered all the questions when asked, but it was all stripped of what Lexi had come to identify as uniquely Sara. It was as though she’d left a piece of herself planetside and now struggled with what to fill the void with.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Lexi said, once she’d concluded that the human was physically in good shape, all things considered. SAM quipped in before Sara got a chance to answer, pointing out the Pathfinder had spoken only seconds ago. While the AI was fairly eloquent as far as AIs go, it had lapses in its social aptness. Lexi glared up towards the ceiling, wherever she imagined the AIs presence to be. While she did know that SAM did observe partially through Sara’s vision, Lexi felt she needed to seperate the two, both for herself and for Sara. Looking into the same pair of eyes to address SAM as when addressing their pathfinder just didn’t sit right with her.

“There’s just this feeling of unease,” Sara opened up, a hand travelling to her stomach and sliding up her chest where she gripped her shirt, as if she could actually grasp that sensation she was talking about. Rather than holding eye contact which she normally seemed very fond of, she was staring blankly into the ground, or at some empty spot beyond it. Her focus clearly wasn’t quite in the room.

“What do you mean?” Lexi prompted, when Sara didn’t continue on her own.

Sara did this little shake of her whole body, as if she could physically shake the feeling, but then again slumped, resigned.

“It started down in the vault,” she said. “But there was so much going on that I could kind of suppress it, but since we got back I just… I think I feel angry? But I don’t know why.”

Lexi let the silence spill, giving Sara the chance to find words on her own, before suggesting paths to explore in finding the source of this unknown rage. Sara did have a lot of things to be angry about, even more than most of them. They had all been expecting a vastly different welcome than the one they got, and every minute in Andromeda had been marred by one disaster after another for Sara, half of those disasters so deeply personal that it was understandable if she felt she didn’t have anyone who could truly understand what she went through.

But Sara shook her head.

“I don’t do angry,” she explained, the confusion evident in her voice. “Like I’ve been angry, but not like this and just… it’s as if this feeling is not my own.”

Lexi spent the next few minutes explaining dissociation to her, to see if that would help her understand her feelings, but Sara still didn’t look convinced. She disappeared into deep thought, though, for a while. Her head tilted to the side, strangely like one of those earthly creatures called puppies. It reminded Lexi of just how young she was, and it wasn’t all that strange, was it, that she would struggle to understand her emotional range in full, in the face of all this turmoil. Perhaps she was just too young to yet realize her own inexperience.

“It feels like someone hurt me,” Sara said. “An absolutely unforgivable hurt and I am willing to do anything to strike as destructive a revenge as possible. But no one hurt me, and that’s not me, Lexi. It’s just not. If I do revenge, it will be in the shape of a prank. You know it as well as I do.”

The usual Sara was shining through, starting to come back and Lexi relaxed a bit. Whatever this was, she felt confident from that tiny smile and twinkle in Sara’s eye at her own mention of pranks - this thing would pass.

“Then why don’t you channel this feeling to a good prank,” Lexi suggested. “See if that helps you out? If you don’t know who to target or why, I can let you prank Liam for me in revenge for dragging that absolute piece of filth couch on board. It was contaminated with 236 different types of bacteria! If I hadn’t caught his smuggling ways in time, he could have caused some serious harm on the local fauna and flora!”

When the rant elicited a small laugh from Sara, Lexi further relaxed on the inside, even as she planted her hands on her hips to lecture the pathfinder on not taking the matter seriously. The tiny laughs spread into an exasperated smile. She’d be alright, Lexi though. Whatever it was, it would be alright.

  
  
  
**Scott**

Their young and recent Pathfinder looked - in lack of better words - muted. It struck Lexi as odd, starkly out of character for the young man that had faced every hardship thus far with a lighthearted joke or as just another challenge accepted. In every horror Scott had found ways to see an adventure. It was a mindset Lexi had only seen fragments of in his father, a far more serious man who was more prone to somber moments, even if better at hiding it.

The current Scott Ryder in Lexi’s medbay was silent. Sure, he’d exchanged the bare minimum pleasantries, had answered all the questions when asked, but it was all stripped of what Lexi had come to identify as uniquely Scott. It was as though he’d left a piece of himself planetside and now struggled with what to fill the void with. 

“You’re awfully quiet,” Lexi said, once she’d concluded that the human was physically in good shape, all things considered. SAM quipped in before Scott got a chance to answer, pointing out the Pathfinder had spoken only seconds ago. While the AI was fairly eloquent as far as AIs go, it had lapses in its social aptness. Lexi glared up towards the ceiling, wherever she imagined the AIs presence to be. While she did know that SAM did observe partially through Scott’s vision, Lexi felt she needed to seperate the two, both for herself and for Scott. Looking into the same pair of eyes to address SAM as when addressing their pathfinder just didn’t sit right with her. 

“There’s just this feeling of unease,” Scott opened up, a hand travelling to his stomach and sliding up his chest where he gripped his shirt, as if he could actually grasp that sensation he was talking about. Rather than holding eye contact which he normally seemed very fond of, he was staring blankly into the ground, or at some empty spot beyond it. His focus clearly wasn’t quite in the room.

“What do you mean?” Lexi prompted, when he didn’t continue on his own.

Scott did this little shake of his whole body, as if he could physically shake the feeling, but then again slumped, resigned.

“It started down in the vault,” he said. “But there was so much going on that I could kind of suppress it then, but since we got back I just… I think I feel angry? But I don’t know why.”

Lexi let the silence spill, giving Scott the chance to find words on his own, before suggesting paths to explore in finding the source of this unknown rage. Scott did have a lot of things to be angry about, even more than most of them. They had all been expecting a vast different welcome than the one they got, and every minute in Andromeda had been marred by one disaster after another for Scott, half of those disasters so deeply personal that it was understandable if he felt he didn’t have anyone who could truly understand what he went through.

But Scott shook his head.

“I don’t do angry,” he explained, the confusion evident in his voice. “Like I’ve been angry, but not like this and just… it’s as if this feeling is not my own.”

Lexi spent the next few minutes explaining dissociation to him, to see if that would help him understand his feelings, but Scott still didn’t look convinced. He disappeared into deep thought, though, for a while. His head tilted to the side, strangely like one of those earthly creatures called puppies. It reminded Lexi of just how young he was, and it wasn’t all that strange, was it, that he would struggle to understand his emotional range in full, in the face of all this turmoil. Perhaps he was just too young to yet understand his own inexperience.

“It feels like someone hurt me,” Scott said. “An absolutely unforgivable hurt and I am willing to do anything to strike as destructive a revenge as possible. But no one hurt me, and that’s not me, Lexi. It’s just not. If I do revenge, it will be in the shape of a prank. You know it as well as I do.”

The usual Scott was shining through, starting to come back and Lexi relaxed a bit. Whatever this was, she felt confident from that tiny smile and twinkle in Scott’s eye at his own mention of prank - this thing would pass.

“Then why don’t you channel this feeling to a good prank,” she suggested. “See if that helps you out? If you don’t know who to target or why, I can let you prank Liam for me in revenge for dragging that absolute piece of filth couch on board. It was contaminated with 236 different types of bacteria! If I hadn’t caught his smuggling ways in time, he could have caused some serious harm on the local fauna and flora!”

When the rant elicited a small laugh from Scott, Lexi further relaxed on the inside, even as she planted her hands on her hips to lecture him on taking the matter seriously. The tiny laughs spread into an exasperated smile. He’d be alright, Lexi though. Whatever it was, it would be alright.

 

 


End file.
